God, Santa, and The Tooth Fairy

[DLJ]

I can understand a conception of god that inherently disqualifies god from the category of ‘magical, imaginary things,’ i.e. the tooth fairy, Santa Clause, etc. (thank you @Neo-Scholastic for harping on the subject often enough that it finally tickled my thinker), and I’m happy to be charitable toward any argument that attempts to make such a distinction.
...

The distinction is actually quite simple.

Santa and the Tooth Fairy are childhood disinformation. They are useful in that we learn that even those close to us can deliberately lie to us.

Gods and goddesses are childhood misinformation. They are useful in that we learn that even those close to us can be lying to us without realising it.

It took me a very long time (I think I was around 10 years old) to come to the decision that people did genuinely believe in this kinda stuff. I'm still often astounded at the depths of the self-deception in some I meet but I understand it better now.

Self-deception is an evolved survival technique for bonding / in-grouping.
"Of course she loves me"
"Of course the Russians got Trump elected"
"Of course the resurrection happened"
etc.